One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
הִלְכוֹת אִסּוּרֵי בִּיאָה · פֶּרֶק ד
Forbidden Intercourse 4
Sefer Kedushah · Niddah among the arayot • Days and immersion • Her word and the eidim • Bleeding in relations
7
Days of niddah, even if
blood was seen only on the first
14
Days of impurity after
the birth of a daughter
66
Days of pure blood after
a daughter (33 after a son)
3
Successive times of bleeding
in relations that require parting
4:1-7Days and Water
- Niddah is one of the arayot. Relations with a niddah carry kerait like every other forbidden union. Niddah impurity can arise from the day of birth and zivah from the tenth day, and liability for relations applies from age three. (4:1)
- The counted days. Seven days for a niddah even if she saw only on the first, seven after a son, fourteen after a daughter, and for a zavah her days of flow and the clean days she counts. This applies to a maidservant and a freed woman too, all under kerait. (4:2)
- Days and immersion together. The prohibition ends only when the days are followed by immersion in a kosher mikveh. Without immersion, relations carry kerait even years later. (4:3)
- A covenantal category. By Torah law these states do not apply to gentile women, though the Sages decreed that gentiles count as zavim for purity. Blood in the 33 days after a son or 66 after a daughter is blood of purity and does not forbid her once she has immersed. (4:4-5)
- Immersion at night. A niddah immerses on the evening of the eighth day, and after childbirth on the evening of the eighth or fifteenth; one who delayed still immerses at night. Illness, distance, danger, cold or locked city gates permit daytime immersion from the eighth day on. (4:6-7)
RememberTime is the vessel and water is the act. Days alone never end the prohibition; immersion does.
4:8-11Her Word Is the Witness
- The presumption of purity. When she has a fixed pattern, her husband may assume she is pure until she says I am impure, or until she is known in her neighborhood as a niddah. (4:8)
- The returning husband. If he left her pure, he need not ask on his return, even outside her expected time. If he left her a niddah, she is forbidden until she tells him I am pure. (4:8)
- Taking back I am impure. If she later says she was joking, she is not believed. If she gives a reason, such as his mother or sister being in the courtyard, she is believed. (4:9)
- Impurity in the midst of closeness. If she says she has become impure during relations, he must not separate abruptly but wait in stillness first, since parting can itself carry the prohibition. The same applies to all the arayot. (4:10-11)
RememberA prohibition of kerait rests on her word. A bare retraction is refused, a reasoned one is believed.
4:12-22The Expected Time and the Eidim
- Separating near the expected time. Relations are forbidden near her expected period, from the start of the day or night on which it usually begins, a Rabbinic safeguard supported by “you shall warn the children of Israel.” Once the time passes without bleeding she is permitted. (4:12-13)
- The eidim. Husband and wife check themselves afterward with clean, soft, worn white linen cloths, called eidim, witnesses. Modest women check beforehand as well, and one without a fixed pattern must. (4:14-16)
- Who checks. Everyone needs cloths afterward, even a pregnant, nursing, elderly or young woman, but a virgin or a woman in her days of pure blood does not. After several times in one night, the cloths may be examined in the morning; if a cloth was lost, she checks before relations again. (4:17-19)
- Reading a stain. On a checked cloth under a pillow, an elongated stain makes her impure but a round one is attributed to an insect. One touched to her thigh is still impure. On an unchecked cloth, only a stain larger than a gris makes her impure. (4:20-22)
RememberThe cloths are called witnesses. The law looks for the truth, and where the truth permits her, it leaves her permitted.
4:23-26Bleeding in Relations
- Three times establishes a pattern. After bleeding in relations once or twice she is permitted again once pure. After a third successive time, with no other cause, she may not continue with this husband. (4:23)
- Other causes. If it can be attributed to her expected time or to a wound of matching appearance, there is no pattern, and she is believed when she says she has a wound that bleeds. (4:24)
- Marrying again. She may marry a second and a third husband, but after the same occurs with three husbands she may not marry again until she is healed. (4:25)
- Establishing healing. The chapter describes an examination that shows whether the bleeding comes from the uterus; commentators note that today a medical examination under a rav’s guidance serves this purpose. (4:26)
RememberEven the hardest case leaves a door open: she may remarry, and healing restores her.